Main Documents

FRSO Sixth Congress Resolution:Resolution on the Struggle for Immigrant Rights

Whereas: It is imperialism that forces immigrants from their countries in the Third World to escape poverty and repression. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has opened up the Mexican economy to even greater penetration by U.S. multinational corporations and agribusiness. U.S. backed governments and counter-revolutionaries in Central America have violently attacked popular movements and governments, leaving economic devastation in their wake. U.S. imperialism has driven and continues to drive millions of Mexicans and Central Americans to the United States.

Whereas: Immigrants from Mexico and Central America face intense national oppression in the United States, rooted in the U.S. conquest and seizure of northern Mexico. Mexicans in the southwest were robbed of their lands, were killed by lynch mobs, had their language suppressed in schools, their culture denigrated, and were forced to work in the mines, fields, factories, and homes of the capitalists. The people of Mexican descent in the southwest were forged into an oppressed nation, the Chicano Nation, with a common territory, economy, and culture, and the right to self-determination.

Whereas: South Americans, Caribbeans, Asians, Africans and Arab immigrants also suffer national oppression in the United States.

Whereas: Generations of immigrants from Mexico who have settled in the southwest have become a part of the Chicano Nation. Mexican immigrants and their descendants are changing the demographics of the southwest, as more and more majority Chicano counties emerge, strengthening the demand for self-determination. This so-called “Browning of America” is striking fear into the racist monopoly capitalist class that rules America.

Whereas: The recent anti-immigrant SB1070 in Arizona that legalizes racial profiling has been followed by the Arizona state government attack on Ethnic Studies, the Chicano student organization MEChA and an attack on immigrant teachers. These racist attacks have aroused a storm of protest throughout the Chicano Nation, supported by oppressed nationalities and progressive people in the United States.

Whereas: Many of the anti-immigrant forces want a national I.D. card that is a threat to civil liberties, support a guest worker program that would further weaken the labor movement, and desire a reduction of legal immigration that also threatens other Latino, Asian, and Arab immigrants.

Be It Resolved: The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) welcomes immigrants from Mexico, Central America, and other countries to the United States, to the fight against national oppression, to the labor movement, and to the people’s struggle in general. Their struggle is our struggle, as it serves to weaken and ultimately overthrow the racist monopoly capitalist class, and is part and parcel of the struggle for socialism.

Be It Resolved: The FRSO supports the immediate demands of the Chicano, Mexicano, and Central American masses for legalization; an end to raids, deportations, and criminalization of the undocumented and militarization of the border; expansion of family reunification; full equality of languages; and no guest worker program. The FRSO fights for working class leadership of the immigrant rights movement that can build a broad united front, including tactical alliances with the national bourgeoisie to advance pro-people legislation, and to mobilize allies among oppressed nationalities and the labor movement.

Be It Resolved: The FRSO will combine day-to-day work to organize the working masses of Chicanos, Mexicanos, Central Americans, and other nationalities along with uniting with the most advanced activists in the immigrant rights movement. This will advance the central task of building a new, multi-national, revolutionary communist party and help lay the foundation for the strategic alliance of the workers movement and the movements of oppressed nationalities for full equality, which are needed to win socialism and put an end to exploitation and national oppression.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization is a Marxist-Leninist organization in the United States. This website contains information about our organization, our politics and some of our activities in the people's movements.www.frso.org | email us | PO Box 87613, Chicago, IL 60680-0613, USA